The People of the Abyss (1903) is a book by Jack London about life in the East End of London in 1902. He wrote this first-hand account after living in the East End (including the White chapel District) for several months, sometimes staying in workhouses or sleeping on the streets. The conditions he experienced and wrote about were the same as those endured by an estimated 500,000 of the contemporary London poor. A very intense book. The way the author describes the horrid conditions of East London (around 1900) will make you really grateful for your present situation in life (no matter what it might be). It is amazing and very difficult to believe that so many (as in thousands upon thousands) of people lived in such desperate and despicable conditions yet this was the case. Jack London voluntarily put himself in this situation to learn what life was like for the wretched. Luckily for him, he had a refuge when things got too tough (and they often did) but none of the others he came into contact with, had such an escape. Facts and Trivia: There had been several previous accounts of slum conditions in England, most notably The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 by Friedrich Engels. However, most of these were based on secondhand sources. Jack London's account was based on the firsthand experience of the writer, and proved to be more popular. George Orwell was inspired by The People of the Abyss, which he read in his teens, and in the 1930s he began disguising himself as a derelict and made tramping expeditions into the poor section of London himself, in emulation of Jack London. The influence of The People of the Abyss can be seen in Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier. Scroll Up and Grab Your Copy! Great Classics: The Call of the Wild by Jack London https: //www.createspace.com/6420473 White Fang by Jack London https: //www.createspace.com/6420475 The Game by Jack London https: //www.createspace.com/6420507 Brown Wolf and Other Stories by Jack London https: //www.createspace.com/6420896 Smoke Bellew by Jack London https: //www.createspace.com/6418962 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane https: //www.createspace.com/6473204 The Open Boat and Other Stories by Stephen Crane https: //www.createspace.com/6447605 The Black Riders and Other Lines by Stephen Crane https: //www.createspace.com/6475101 Lady Susan by Jane Austen https: //www.createspace.com/6398116 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen https: //www.createspace.com/6425513 Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen https: //www.createspace.com/6428190 Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen https: //www.createspace.com/6428537 Persuasion by Jane Austen https: //www.createspace.com/6427638 Love and Friendship by Jane Austen https: //www.createspace.com/6439962 Daisy Miller (1879) by Henry James https: //www.createspace.com/6445037 Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu https: //www.createspace.com/6451809 Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte https: //www.createspace.com/6444859"

Author Biography

John Griffith "Jack" London (born John Griffith Chaney, January 12, 1876 - November 22, 1916) was an American novelist, journalist, and social activist. A pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction, he was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone. Some of his most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire," "An Odyssey of the North," and "Love of Life". He also wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen", and of the San Francisco Bay area in The Sea Wolf. London married Elizabeth "Bessie" Maddern on April 7, 1900, the same day The Son of the Wolf was published. Bess had been part of his circle of friends for a number of years. London was part of the radical literary group "The Crowd" in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of unionization, socialism, and the rights of workers. He wrote several powerful works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel The Iron Heel, his non-fiction expose The People of the Abyss, and The War of the Classes. In later life London indulged his wide-ranging interests by accumulating a personal library of 15,000 volumes. He referred to his books as "the tools of my trade." In 1905, London purchased a 1,000 acres ranch in Glen Ellen, Sonoma County, California, on the eastern slope of Sonoma Mountain, for $26,450. He wrote: "Next to my wife, the ranch is the dearest thing in the world to me." He desperately wanted the ranch to become a successful business enterprise. Writing, always a commercial enterprise with London, now became even more a means to an end: "I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate." After 1910, his literary works were mostly potboilers, written out of the need to provide operating income for the ranch."